Features

Why limit the Oscars to movies?

There are lots of things that deserve an award upside the head

Best picture:The Hangover. Clearly someone slipped the Academy roofies with their Jager while handing out ballots. How else to explain a complete shut-out for the highest-grossing R-rated comedy in history, not to mention the best advertisement for Las Vegas ever? This is right up there with the Obama snubs, and we demand Oscar Goodman sport a black armband outside the Kodak Theatre this Sunday.

Best performance by a political spouse in an nonsupporting role: Dawn Gibbons

Best performance by a political spouse in a supporting role: Darlene Ensign, who has managed to stay completely out of the news. (Although, c’mon, maybe just a LITTLE public outrage, huh?)

Best aftermath of an orgy:The Hangover although the 2010 legislative special session deserves an honorable mention.

Best special effect: The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, in managing to completely obscure the fact that Nevada’s tourism is in the toilet.

Best dialogue: A three-way tie between Oscar Goodman, Harry Reid and Criss Angel, whose tongues have resulted in more unfortunate headlines than we care to count. (Take your pick: calling a woman a “fat and short Bette Midler,” saying Obama lacks a “Negro dialect” or using the word “faggot” during a Cirque du Soleil performance.)

More

Best quote: Harry Reid to the Review-Journal: “I hope you go out of business.”

Best runner-up quote: Jim Gibbons: “I’m living proof you can survive without sex for that long,” referring to his alleged celibacy since 1995.

Best example of how Nevada is slowly turning into California: The banning of the stripper-mobile

Best recipe for vomit: Finishing the NASCAR Cafe’s “The Bomb” burrito by yourself—all 2-feet, six pounds of it—and winning the completion prize: Free unlimited rides on the Sahara rollercoaster, which goes forward and backward.

Best short feature: John Ensign’s hair

Best sex scene: Jim Gibbons finding new and truly ingenious ways to completely screw the state of Nevada.

Best naked Ken Jeong moment:The Hangover

Best reason for Las Vegans to summon fake outrage: Barack Obama

Best work of fiction: The Nevada budget

Best politician: Er, can we get back to you on this one?

Best pipe dream: A Las Vegas sports stadium

Best reason to stay indoors:The Hangover on DVD

Best performance by a band of a completely different band’s music: Cheap Trick and the Beatles at the Las Vegas Hilton

Best use of irony: A Las Vegas Toni Braxton impersonator was imprisoned in South America for … impersonating Toni Braxton.

Best confusing semi-professional sports team name: The Locomotives, the name for Las Vegas’ UFL team, which was shortened to the Locos, which means ... something totally different.

Best unfortunate vanishing act: Lake Las Vegas

Best story that had us saying, “Really? Really?”: Searchlight residents opposed wind turbines near their town, saying they’d impact property values.

Best acknowledgement of the people who REALLY created this town: The mob museum

Best long-overdue departure: Mike Sanford

Best reason to add the term “wolf pack” to the lexicon:The Hangover

Best accomplishment: Conrad Murray, Michael Jackson’s doctor, who’s managed to keep his name in the headlines practically every week.

Best baby name: Carlos, The Hangover

Best thing that briefly got our minds off this crappy economy: Swine flu

Best way Las Vegas stayed in the headlines in the worst way possible: Tiger Woods mistresses

Best busted Vegas myth: That Caesar didn’t actually live at Caesars Palace, from The Hangover

Best performance: Floyd Mayweather Jr., for acting like he truly wanted to fight Manny Pacquiao, if only it weren’t for the fact that, golly gee, Manny just didn’t feel like taking a million blood tests first.

Best prop: The Monorail.

Photo: Denise Truscello/WireImage

Best divorce: This one was close, but we’ll give it to Steve and Elaine Wynn. At least they managed to keep it somewhat quiet.

Best economic stimulus package: Garth Brooks at Wynn Las Vegas.

Best runner-up economic stimulus package: Markus, the first male prostitute hired at the Shady Lady brothel.

Best teachable moment: The Clark County School District, which offered “alternative” activities to its students who didn’t want to be subjected to the propaganda of Barack Obama when he delivered his speech on education.

Best politician who had an affair with an ex-staffer’s wife, made sure that ex-staffer got a job, and had mommy and daddy pay him off: John Ensign.

Best intersection: “The corner of get a map and fuck off,” The Hangover

Best original writing: Former Las Vegas law professor Jay Bybee’s torture memos written during the Bush administration.

Best script: The no-tax-increase speech Jim Gibbons always pulls from his pocket to ensure Nevada continues to slowly die.

A surveillance camera shows a cat walking in the parking garage in the Jim Gibbons-Chrissy Mazzeo assault investigation.

Best film editing: The surveillance tape from the parking garage where Chrissy Mazzeo and Governor Gibbons had their boozy encounter—nice use of altered time stamps.

Best example of a boxer owning a Phil Collins song: Mike Tyson singing “In the Air Tonight,” The Hangover

Best location for a post-apocalypse dystopian horror film: Any of the halted and/or failed real estate developments that dot Clark County. Yesterday’s million-dollar modern condos are today’s end-of-days battlefield scene.

Best thing for sale that we wish we could have bought: “Samson,” a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton auctioned at the Venetian.

Best proof that men walking around in their underwear can be hysterical and deeply disturbing at the same time: Zack Galifianakis, The Hangover

Best sports development that no one really seemed to notice: Changing the Las Vegas Triple-A baseball affiliate from the Dodgers to the Toronto Blue Jays.

Best place to hide: In the panic room of the massive Tomiyasu Lane mansion Michael Jackson rented when he stayed in Las Vegas—the room has its own oxygen supply, and a buried phone line that can’t be cut. When you come out of hiding, you can enjoy the mansion’s indoor gun range.

Best example that Vegas would rather move away from cliches:The Lion King

Best reason to hate the Nevada justice system: Dipak Desai

Best news we’ve heard in a long time: Dipak Desai, the guy behind the whole endoscopy mess in Nevada, surrenders his license.

Best alternative to watching the Oscars: Watch The Hangover and play the following drinking game: Every time Galifianakis says something stupid, drink.

Best use of a choice four-letter word by a Nevada politician to describe the Democratic Party: Senator Dina Titus, who used the word “fucked” in talking about the recent Democratic upset in Massachusetts.

Best addendum to “What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas”: “Except herpes. That shit will come back with you,” The Hangover